


is that the kind of way to face the burning heat

by Rivran



Series: hear that bell ringing (but won't get the door) [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING ELSE APPARENTLY, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), I Wrote This While Listening to Hozier's Music, actually not much angst, i swear to god this is fluffy just trust me, in which case there is a lot of angst, love in the present tense, unless you count the building exploding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27516448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivran/pseuds/Rivran
Summary: Armageddon is a year past. Heaven and Hell have ignored Earth the entire time. But when a minor disaster strikes London, Crowley and Aziraphale find themselves in the middle of several new problems.Crowley's list of problems, in no particular order:1. The entire internet thinks he and Aziraphale are angels.2. He's accidentally kept his old identity secret from his best friend for six thousand years.3. He's just told the same best friend that he loves him.actual title from Work Song by Hozieralternate title: SOMEONE TAKE AWAY MY HOZIER PRIVILEGES
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: hear that bell ringing (but won't get the door) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017918
Comments: 12
Kudos: 201





	is that the kind of way to face the burning heat

**Author's Note:**

> warning: a building explodes, and aziraphale and crowley go to help the trapped humans. also i went HARD on the bastardry this time

The silence was the worst part.

Crowley knew this; he’d had too many brushes with mass tragedy to forget. Later, there would be sirens, and panic, and screaming. But just then? The rubble was quiet as the grave.

It happened with no warning. No lead-up, just a faint smell of smoke - and an explosion that shook the whole city. He barely had time to shield himself with a miracle.

Crowley allowed himself one moment to close his eyes and curse Hell. _You know I hate these ones. Why did I have to be here right now?_ He took a steadying breath, ignored the fact that he didn’t need air, and moved on.

No doubt about it, it was a disaster. It had been a block of flats before the mysterious explosion. Gas stove? Somebody cooking up explosives? _Who knows_ , he thought bitterly. He picked his way through the building, searching for – _there!_

A child lay there among the crumbled bricks. She looked asleep, but she had probably passed out. _Yeah, building falling down will do that to you,_ Crowley thought. He looked around. No one was coming. No sirens, no screaming. _Alright, fine, so it’s up to me_. He crouched down and healed the girl. She would sleep until emergency services got there. No need to traumatise her any more.

Crowley sniffed the air. A creeping realisation was about to dawn on him, and he didn’t like it one bit.

_There are dozens of humans here_.

It had been too much to hope for and he knew it. It was an early Tuesday evening. Some of the building’s occupants had been out, but not enough. So many _people_ were here. He made his way to another human form. He healed.

Another human. He healed.

Another human.

_Nothing left to heal there,_ he realised. He shook his head. There were plenty of other humans left alive to help, anyway.

He felt Aziraphale arrive before he saw him. _Shit, that was fast. How long have I been there?_

“Oh, dear. What on Earth happened here?”

“Dunno,” he said, trying very hard to look less miserable than he felt. “Tasted like petrol, for a second, but I don’t think it was.” He crouched down to heal yet another human. “There’s so many of them.”

Aziraphale concentrated. Anyone watching would have gotten the impression of twenty, fifty, two hundred eyes opening all around him. But it was just Crowley. Just Crowley, and the dozens of people still caught in the destruction. “Well. I have no idea what caused it, but I know where the survivors are. Oh, there’s quite a few trapped on the upper floors.”

He sidestepped a chunk of old brick that hadn’t disintegrated. “The stairs got taken out in the explosion, angel. How are we supposed to get up there?”

Aziraphale leveled a Look at Crowley.

“Oh, you can’t possibly be serious.” He wiped his hands. The humans’ blood was starting to collect under his nails.

“No one will see us, Crowley.”

“Alright, fine.” They extended their wings and _lifted_. One landed on the first floor, the other on the one above. They both set to healing. Crowley had used up so much of his energy, but he couldn’t stop. Not when there were still breathing bodies around. He couldn’t see him, but he knew Aziraphale was doing the same.

Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder and a voice in his ear. He jumped.

“We should go, Crowley. The human healers are on their way.”

“Paramedics,” he corrected.

“What?”

“The human healers. They call them paramedics now. And we can’t leave, there’s still people here.” _I have to heal them_ , he didn’t add. _Don’t you remember that’s what I do?_

“Crowley.” Aziraphale looked at him. “Someone will see us and start asking questions.”

“You’re right, angel.” Crowley sighed. He knew what asking questions did to a person. “At least bless it before we go, yeah?”

“I was planning to wait until you were out of the building, my dear. You’re in no state to heal yourself, let alone blessed burns.”

He was right and they both knew it. “Fine, home it is.”

* * *

If someone had asked Crowley how they got back to his flat, he wouldn’t know. He collapsed into a sofa that may or may not have existed when they got there. 1 Exhaustion settled deep in his bones.

“Feels like Armageddon all over again,” he complained.

“I know the feeling,” commiserated the angel. “Oh, I do hope they turned out all right.”

“How long has it been, half an hour? Or something like that? It’s probably on the news by now, angel.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” He paused. “It’s been a while since I operated a television. How do I turn yours on?”

“Dunno,” said Crowley truthfully. 2 “I usually just think at it.”

It turned on. 3 Some random news crew had already arrived on scene. It was bad, of course, but they knew that already.

“…not yet discovered the cause of the blast. Only two deaths have been reported. Authorities say the building had approximately ninety occupants at the time of the explosion.”

The video cut to a man in an official-looking uniform. “It’s astounding, really, how few injuries there were. We’ve pulled just about everyone from the building, far as we can tell, and only five people were injured. I mean, that’s unheard of.”

“Seven casualties,” breathed Crowley. “Not bad.”

The news broadcaster was talking again. “But that’s not the only strange report coming in. A local business captured the whole scene on their security cameras. Take a look.”

The video played out in front of them. It looked like Crowley’s memory, just from a different angle. He cringed as the building blew up.

The video skipped forward to Aziraphale’s arrival. “These two men arrived before emergency services. At first, police believed they were somehow involved with the explosion. But watch closer.”

“Oh, shit,” said the angel.

They watched their own wings materialise. Their past selves took flight, alighting on the remnants of the upper floors. Light flared from Crowley’s healing miracles. They wouldn’t show to a human eye, but human cameras… that was a different story. One that played in front of them like an insult.

“Here’s another video from a closer angle, taken by the first ambulance to arrive on scene.”

Same events. Different angle. _Much harder to pass off as a clever fake_.

“Did these men have something to do with the number of survivors?” said the official-looking man. “I don’t know. The building staying up that long, though, that was definitely a miracle. All our experts say it should have collapsed with the original explosion.”

“Was that one of mine, or one of yours?” asked Crowley. Aziraphale shrugged.

“I know how I landed when the building collapsed, and it should have killed me,” said a young woman. Crowley recognised her from the wreckage. “I don’t know for sure who those men were, but I think they were angels. They saved my life.”

“The community has already started to express their thanks. Users on Twitter have already christened the pair the Vauxhall Angels.” The news camera panned across a collection of flowers and signs left at the burned-out building. One paper said We Love You _Vauxhall Angels._ Another said _God Bless Our Angels_. A third simply read _Thank You_.

“Fuck,” said Crowley.

“Rather,” replied Aziraphale.

* * *

“An hour,” Crowley said, another hour later. “One bloody hour and half the damn internet has seen that video.”

Aziraphale took another long drink from his wineglass. “I can’t believe I forgot about cameras.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley, copying the motion. “They’re sort of everywhere, round here.”

Aziraphale changed the subject.

“You know, my dear, you really didn’t have to expend all your energy today,” he said. “Human medicine could have done most of the healing work for you.”

Crowley gave him a look of horror. “There were kids there! ‘Course I had to do something.” He paused. “And I didn’t use it all up. Still got plenty of… what’s the expression?”

“Juice,” supplied Aziraphale.

“Juice! That’s it.” He wiggled his fingers to illustrate his point. “I’m tired, but it’s just the corporation.” He sank back in the chair, satisfied. “Don’t think I’ve ever ran out of power, honestly.”

“Really, never?” The angel sipped his wine. “I didn’t perform nearly as many miracles as you today, but I could hardly reheat a cup of tea right now.” He stretched, demonstrating his own point. If Crowley was sober, he might have seen the curiosity flick across the angel’s face. 4 “Sometimes, I… no, that’s not important.”

“Aziraphale,” said Crowley. “What were you about to say?”

“Don’t worry, my dear, it doesn’t matter. It was a frightfully personal question anyway.”

“Nah, go ahead. Open book, I am.” 5

“No, I really shouldn’t…”

“Come on, angel. Now you’ve got me curious, too.”

“Oh, fine.” Aziraphale took a breath he didn’t need. “Who were you before the Fall?”

Crowley moved in a way you could generously approximate as sitting straight up. Of all the weird questions to be asked, that had not been the one he was expecting.

“I know it’s not something you like to discuss,” Aziraphale hurried on, “but sometimes you’ll do a thing and – it just makes me wonder.”

“Like what?” _I probably shouldn’t be drunk for this_ , he thought, and took another drink anyway.

“Oh, it sounds rather silly when I say it out loud. But when you do…” he paused. Crowley hoped he wasn’t about to say he was nice. “Well, you behave quite unlike a demon should, and sometimes it seems like you have far more power at your disposal than any of the other demons we’ve encountered. So you can understand why I wonder about you, my dear.”

Crowley resembled a fish that had just been violently dumped from its tank. “You don’t know?” he asked, unconsciously echoing his words back at the air base.

“We’ve been friends for thousands of years, dear boy. What could I possibly not know by now?”

_Okay, yeah, I should probably be sober for this one._ Another drink. “You’re telling me that in six thousand years, I’ve never reminded you of anyone from Before?”

“No,” said Aziraphale uncertainly.

“Red hair? Yellow eyes? Built the stars?”

“That just sounds like you, Crowley. And you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want me to know. No need for the guessing game.”

“What? No, I want to tell you, angel. I just can’t say the name anymore. Catches and dies in my throat, you know.” An idea popped into his mind. “I can’t tell you… but I _can_ show you.” He rose from his place on the sofa and concentrated. Wings faded into existence, though there were no cameras around to see them this time. Two, then four, then six wings came into the physical plane. To a human, it would have looked like cleaning a smudge off a phone screen, revealing what had always been underneath.

It felt good to stretch his second and third wings. They had been hidden away for millennia, only pulled into physicality occasionally. Usually, when Crowley was absolutely sure no one would bother him for a good few weeks. He relaxed into the stretch.

Recognition dawned bright on Aziraphale’s face. “You’re Raphael,” he breathed. “The Archangel.”

Crowley deflated. “I used to be.” He sank into the sofa. Releasing his extra wings always took so much energy out of him. That final string had been cut, and he knew exhaustion was writing itself all over his face.

Also, he was drunk.

“Oh, angel. I’m so tired.”

Aziraphale nodded. “I know, dear boy.” It was clear he had questions for Crowley, but he had the grace not to ask. “You should rest.”

“Stay here?”

“Of course, my dear. Where else would I go?”

“Dunno. Figured you’d leave. After I lied to you, an’ everything.”

“Not deliberately.”

“What?”

“Oh, I am not having this conversation while you’re drunk and sleepy.” He pulled Crowley to his feet. Crowley let himself be led to his bedroom, not even caring about the potential teasing he could use on the angel later. He fell, no, _sauntered vaguely downwards_ into the heap of pillows he kept atop the bed.

“M’night, angel. Love you,” he said, burrowing into the pillows.

* * *

Aziraphale froze. Had he actually heard that correctly? _No, couldn’t be. I must be imagining things._ He waited until he was snoring to whisper, “I love you too, Crowley.”

* * *

Crowley awoke slowly. He may have been a (former) Archangel, but even he had reached his limit. He allowed himself a long, indulgent stretch before cracking one eye open. _Bless it, I didn’t even change out of yesterday’s clothes?_

“Good morning, love,” murmured his angel.

“Hi,” he said stupidly. Then, a moment later: “What?”

Aziraphale smiled at him from the foot of the bed. “You were quite exhausted last night, my dear. You may have, ah, let some things slip.”

“What did I say? Was it something stupid?” he asked, face halfway buried in the mattress.

“Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t matter.”

“Aziraphale,” he said, and then stopped cold. He sat bolt upright. “No. I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“Fuck,” he said, covering his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, angel, I don’t know what got into me. I didn’t mean it.” _Don’t let this ruin what we have. I’m so sorry_. _Please forgive me_.

“You really didn’t mean it?”

“Swear on my life.”

“Oh, good. I won’t have to go and tell Gabriel that his dearly departed brother is actually the demon that stopped Armageddon.”

Crowley allowed himself a glance at Aziraphale. He was smiling, the bastard. “Angel, are we talking about two different stupid things I confessed to last night?”

“That depends, my dear.” He sipped his tea. _Where did he even get that?_

“I hate you,” he said, covering his face again.

“Really, dear. And I thought you just said you loved me.”

“I do,” he said, and then, “you bastard. You played me.”

“I did,” said Aziraphale happily. He sipped his tea, smiling like a man-shaped being who was very pleased with himself.

“Right, and you’re just going to sit there while I wait?”

“Wait for what?”

“Wait for your bloody answer, because I just said I love you and you haven’t given me anything to go on,” he said, trying and failing to act casual.

“Oh, my _dear_ ,” he said. He searched out the demon’s hand and clasped it between his own. “Of course I love you, you beautiful, ridiculous demon.” He pulled Crowley close and kissed him on the forehead. “Brilliant. Lovely.” He smiled. “ _Nice_.”

Crowley’s brain short-circuited. “I’ll show you _nice_ ,” he said, and yanked Aziraphale in for a real kiss.

He kept it chaste. If Aziraphale pulled back and decided no, he did not want to be kissing a demon, then Crowley would have that much less to regret. 6

Aziraphale did no such thing. In fact, he made a noise of delight and pulled Crowley closer. It might have been ten seconds, or an hour, or several days later when they finally came up for air. 7

“Angel,” he said breathlessly. 8

“Oh, my love, I have wanted to do that for a very long time.”

“How long?”

“Oh, I – well, it’s not important…”

“No,” insisted Crowley. “If I talked in my sleep, you can tell me when you fell in love with me.” He was smiling like he had never done it before, and found it very enjoyable.

“1793,” he admitted. “I was stuck in that dismal place, listening to all those humans being killed. Then you turned up dressed like _that_ and rescued me.”

“And that… made you realize you loved me?”

“Strictly speaking, it’s love, in the present tense. And no. When I realized I would have done the same for you, that’s what told me ‘oh, this is it, this is love’.”

“Oh,” said Crowley, determinedly not crying.

“Crowley, _my love_ , how long has it been?”

“When I asked… where your flaming sword had gone. I said ‘lost it already, have you?’. You went ‘I gave it away!’ and right then, I decided you were worth it.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, paying no mind to the tears gathering in his eyes. “Worth what?”

“You know,” said Crowley, gesturing to himself. “All of this. The apple thing, and the rain, and…”

“The Fall,” completed Aziraphale softly.

“Hm. Yeah.”

“Oh, my dear,” said his angel. His eyes were so full of love. Crowley absolutely had to shut him up with a kiss. It was his only choice.

It was a pretty good one, given the options.

Crowley remembered something in the middle of their… _reminiscing_. He cleared his throat. “Listen, angel, this is brilliant. I’m still not fully convinced I’m not dreaming. But this aside, we do still have an entire city that thinks we’re angels. I don’t know if we can just sit here snogging until they find us.”

“Well, the problem is that they’re mostly correct. Not everyone can just lie about what we are.”

Crowley sighed. _The first of six centuries worth of teasing_. He smiled anyway. “Angel, you’ve lied to God. What do you care about some humans?”

He pretended to consider it, but they both knew Crowley was right. “Fine,” he conceded. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

“It would be fun to lean into it, though.”

“Oh, dear, we shouldn’t.”

“And when has that stopped us before? Look, the whole city thinks we’re angels, and they’re only half wrong. Just imagine it, angel.” Crowley grinned. “We could do anything without worrying what the humans would think. Gabriel would piss himself.”

“Perhaps,” said the angel, allowing himself a smile. “But everyone would be clamoring for help. We’d never have a moment of peace.” He grinned mischeviously. “Angel.”

“Aziraphale,” he said. “You are so ridiculous. Come here and kiss me again.”

* * *

1\. Crowley may have been out of energy, but his flat had Seen Some Shit. It was most accommodating to him.  [ ▲ ]

2\. He was too tired to laugh at the innuendo. Exhausted indeed. [ ▲ ]

3\. Again, thanks to the flat. [ ▲ ]

4\. He was absolutely not sober enough to catch it. [ ▲ ]

5\. This was not strictly true, but it was close enough. Horseshoes, government work, etc.[ ▲ ]

6\. Not that it would help the heartbreak in that situation. Crowley had never been killed by holy water, but he imagined the feeling would be about the same. [ ▲ ]

7\. They didn’t need it, of course, but it was nice to have sometimes. [ ▲ ]

8\. See, air is nice to have. [ ▲ ]

**Author's Note:**

> holy shit how did i write 3k words of this?? 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading! please leave a comment if you liked it and let me know if you want to see more from me in future!


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